My comment about "not an SF or California problem" was not soley in reference to the OP article, nor necessarily about folks on the Cave. I've been seeing - and posting? - articles about this problem for 2 or 3 years.
That SF and the Land of LA make the top 5 list doesn't surprise me, though. For example, Walgreen's has closed, last I heard, 18 or 19 stores in SF due to shelf-clearing thieves. However, I would quibble listing SF and Oakland separately. Many/Most theft gangs doing their thing in SF are based in Oakland, using the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge for SF access and egress. Oakland is less compact and has plenty of unused warehouse/storage and industrial buildings from which to operate the resale back end of the theft operations.
Expanding some, CA's ballot proposition that raised the $$ value threshold for theft to be a felony has contributed to theft gangs, though I think mostly indirectly. Clearing just one shelf in a Walgreen's into a large garbage bag will quickly exceed the limit. The key contributing causes (ignoring the theft culture of the thieves) are DAs who won't prosecute "small stuff" seriously, "Bail Reform", and police knowing that these factors mean hunting down retail thieves will be wasted effort and risk.
Other than increasing the risk and seriousness of consequences, government can't do a lot to eliminate thug culture. As long as kids are raised to think that theft is OK if the targets are white or big corporations or ??, some kids will make theft a career. As long as kids are raised to think that assault, rape and murder are OK if the targets are white or Asian or ?? or assertions of power and dominance, some kids will be violent thugs until a "bigger" thug takes them out, they try to shoot it out with the police, or they get caught after committing a crime bad enough that they actually get prosecuted and convicted.